card at the General's gate, I make all speed back to the cab-stand in front of the citadel, where, dismissing my drosky, I start on foot, like another Haroun Alraschid, in quest of adventures.

Nor have I long to wait, in this wonder-abounding region, for something worth looking at. After wandering for some time in a labyrinth of dirty lanes (the Minotaur being represented by a solitary camel, which makes a vicious bite at me as I pass), I come out suddenly into the "Great Square of Three Mosques"-an entirely new scene to me, and undoubtedly the most splendid tableau which even Samarcand can display. But to describe the panorama, with its overwhelming profusion of gay colours, and mingled uproar, and ever-moving life, is simply impossible. The best way to imagine it is to take a paved court about the size of Portman Square-wall it in on three sides with St Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and the front of Christchurch, painting all three with every colour of the rainbow-cram into this space the entire stock in trade of Covent Garden-people it with the Shah's. suite, the Japanese embassy, and the last caravan from Mecca-fill in the picture with a rich southern sky, and a temperature of 93° in the shade—and the product shall be a faint outline of the thing required.

I seat myself under the grand archway of the TilliahKari Mosque, and endeavour to analyse the enormous mass of bustle and uproar which eddies around me like a sea. On one side, a sallow, vicious-looking boy in a striped tunic is ranting out passages from the Koran,

grimacing frightfully all the time; on the other, in the midst of an eager circle, two brawny fellows in blue caftans are going through a kind of theatrical performance, the dialogue of which must be specially comic, judging from the shouts of laughter which it excites. Just in front of me, a couple of Sarts are chaffering over a bunch of splendid grapes, which would be cheap at a shilling in Covent Garden, but here go for about a farthing. Close beside them, a sly-looking grey beard in a huge green turban is exchanging some Russian silver for a handful of those quaint little knobs of battered brass, covered with crabbed Eastern characters, which figure in every Asiatic town from Khiva to Kokan; while, a little further on, two or three Cossack soldiers, with black hair cropped close round their bold sunburned faces, are bandying some rough, goodhumoured "chaff" with a big, jolly-looking native merchant, just arrived from Bokhara.

*

But the day is wearing on, and I must think of returning. I make a hasty meal of hot' dumplings (an exact fac-simile of that described in Chapter xxv.), and start homeward by a circuitous route, making a long detour along the outer wall, and getting entangled midway among a flock of "fat-tailed sheep," whose huge square lappets hang down like those of a broadskirted coat. On reaching the post-house, I find Mr Dilke talking with a Russian officer, who introduces himself as Lieutenant M, and delivers an invitation

Half-a-dozen of these coins (very fair average specimens) still remain with me.

to dinner for the following evening, on the part of General Abrâmoff.

"It can't be very comfortable for you to be stuck in a corner like this," pursues the hospitable Lieutenant; "you had better just shift over to my quarters, which are close by. There's only one man there beside myself, so there'll be plenty of room for you both. I'll just go and get all ready for you, and then take you over with me."

Half-an-hour later, we

No sooner said than done. are snugly ensconced in a long, low, deliciously cool room, in the angle of a little one-storeyed house on the skirts of the suburb. A waxed floor, with a piece of carpeting in the middle, four or five good-sized windows, tables and chairs in abundance, a sofa a-piece to sleep on, and a cook shop within easy reach. What more can traveller's heart desire? After our experience of Russian post-houses and Kirghiz tents, this new "interior" is absolute luxury.

And even more luxurious do we feel on the following evening, as we enter the General's spacious garden, shaded with clustering trees, and with a dainty little summer-house in the centre, open on both sides, and serving alike as a cabinet and a reception room. Dinner is served in a similar pavilion a little further on, and a first-rate dinner it is. A well-spread table in the shade, with the fresh evening breeze flitting around it; a menu that would not disgrace the best hotel in Vienna, filled with dishes to which we have long been strangers; half-a-dozen officers, brimful of good stories

and campaigning anecdotes; and at the head of the board, the short, square, muscular figure and florid face (surmounted by the black skull-cap that masks the wound received at Kitab) * of General Abrâmoff himself, one of the pleasantest hosts and most thorough soldiers whom it has been my good fortune to meet. In a word, we seem like old friends welcomed to some hospitable country-house near Moscow, instead of unlicensed intruders into one of the most barbarous regions in the world.

Seldom have I spent a more enjoyable evening. Among these thorough-going viveurs, the conversation never flags for a moment. Anecdotes of former campaigns, recollections of exploring trips in Kokan and Bokhara, jokes upon the Khiva Expedition, and speculations as to its probable result, follow each other in unbroken succession. Our healths are drunk with all possible heartiness; and when we at length rise to depart, the brave old General's hand-shake is as cordial as if the possibility of his having to send us out of the country to-morrow, under an armed escort, were a thing wholly undreamed of.

And so, for two or three days, our life in Samarcand goes pleasantly enough. We explore the city from one end to the other; we make the circuit of its great wall, and lose ourselves in the maze of little gardens that cluster at its base. We experiment upon Bokhariote cookery, and revel in unlimited fruit. We go to dine at the

* See Chapter i.

3

camp" outside the town with Colonel T

(to whom

I owe the startling theory respecting the Oxus which closes Chapter xxii.), and survey in their cantonments under the walls of the only mosque which I have not visited, a good portion of the "seven thousand bayonets" which are one day to be levelled at Herat or Kashgar.

On the third day of our sojourn we endeavour to revive our English athletics by a forced march over the eight miles of steep, crumbling ridges which lie between us and the summit of the Tchepan-Ata, being rewarded with a magnificent view of the Samarcand valley on one side, and the plain of the Zer-Affshan on the other, overspread as with a silver net by the countless channels of the river. On our way back (but little cooled by a bath in one of the innumerable streams, and still looking eagerly out for refreshment), we espy an old Bokhariote coiled up on his little carpet by the roadside, almost hidden from sight behind a huge basket of grapes.

"This looks like what we want," remark I, crossing the road, and squatting myself on the carpet. "How much do you think there is there?-ten pounds?" "There-abouts," answers my comrade, poising the

basket.

"That's just a fair three pennyworth, then ; we'll give him ten kopecks to let us eat as many as we can."

The old gentleman assents at once, and, pocketing his money, goes to sleep again with a philosophic indifference as to the result. When he wakes an hour later, the basket is empty, and his two customers are walking quietly off as if nothing had happened.

X